


Dreaming

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Freckled Jesus Makes Horseface Whinny, M/M, Missing Scene, One Shot, jeanmarco, yeah I really just tagged it that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few intimate moments between Jean and Marco leading up to Trost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming

It’s in the woodshed, a year before graduation, when they first find what lies beneath cloth and straps. It’s the new year, and somehow, Sasha has managed to procure some of the worst moonshine in the history of backwoods booze-brewing.

Jean grapples with the crude door latch, cursing, while Marco laughs. They finally managed to get it open and stumble into the dark shed, limbs every which way and fumbling to keep track of where arms, hands, and legs are.

Marco is giggling incessantly as he pushes the door shut behind them, and then turns to face Jean.

They both sober as their eyes adjust to the dark, and finally Jean can make out Marco’s features. They’re staring at each other, as if unsure now that they’re here that this was such a good idea.

It takes exactly two steps for Jean to close the distance between them and push Marco up against the wall, rough hewn logs neatly stacked next to them.

He closes his eyes tight and kisses Marco for the first time, trying to ignore everything that doesn’t include the faint taste of gasoline-grade alcohol in Marco’s mouth, the softness of his lips, the little gasp he gives as Jean slides a hand into his hair.

Finally, they draw apart, and Jean is trying to pretend he’s not panting.

“You ever done it with a _guy?_ ” Marco breathes, trying to keep his voice down. His eyebrows raise, and it’s obvious he thinks the answer is no.

Jean pulls away, his mouth going slack. 

“No... of course not.”

With no small effort, he manages to keep the slur out of his voice, although he’s at least able to blame the blush on the liquor.

Marco just grins through Jean’s defenses, pressing up against him, a little drunker than Jean first realized.

“Neither have I,” he replies, laughing a little, “but you feel good.”

It smells like freshly chopped timber, hardly any light coming in under the door from the outside, but it’s quiet and dark. It feels calm, unlike the rest of their lives, and Jean can’t help the way his eyes slip shut again as he feels Marco’s hands join at the small of his back.

“You feel good, too,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against Marco’s again.

Jean is curious enough, though, to crack an eye open to see what Marco looks like from this close.

He thinks it’s almost funny how Marco’s face gets so serious when he’s kissing, like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. But then Jean can’t begrudge him a serious expression when Marco unexpectedly reverses their positions, hauling Jean up to sit on top of the wood bundles and get right in between his legs.

Jean tries not to think too much about how easy it is to wrap his legs around Marco’s hips, pull him even closer and just keep right on kissing.

He tries not to think of serious expressions or how his heart feels when Marco moves down to his neck—brave and eager—to the hollow of his throat. He’s still standing, and Jean grips one of the wood pieces, a few splinters breaking the skin of his palm.

He doesn’t care, because Marco is making desperate little sounds as they rub against each other that Jean’s never heard, and he thinks he might just come without even a hand job.

He does when Marco really thrusts his hips forward; and he thinks Marco does, too, but he doesn’t ask.

He’s relatively sure, in fact, when Marco just relaxes all of a sudden—fluid and happy—and presses his forehead against Jean’s.

“That was nice,” he says, his eyes glazed over from what Jean can tell, but then he blinks in surprise when he sees Jean’s hand gripped around a kindling stick. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Jean swears to every god that might be watching that he does not love Marco when Marco gently takes the splinters out of his hand.

And at breakfast the next morning, Jean swears it again when, instead of a wink or a knowing glance, Marco asks in a genuinely concerned voice, “How’s your hand?”

= = =

Marco is warm at night when it’s snowing outside.

No one says anything in the bunks. It’s not as if there’s a lot to argue about aside from Titans and egos, and no one—not even a bunch of teenage boys—will begrudge a fellow cadet his comforts.

Marco snores, but he’s warm. And Jean sometimes stays awake, his face pressed against Marco’s shoulder, resenting the noise and loving it at the same time. It’s okay to make noise in the nighttime, without fear of death, when everyone is calm and sleeping.

Jean doesn’t dream, but Marco does, even though he snores. He laughs softly, too, sometimes turning his face into Jean’s shoulder under the thin blanket.

“Mama,” he murmurs, “that’s the best pie I ever had.”

Jean can’t help the way his arm tightens around Marco’s waist where it’s resting right then.

“Is it good?” he asks quietly.

Marco smiles in his sleep, and rolls onto his side, sighing.

Then he opens his eyes, still smiling, and murmurs, “Jean?”

“Mm?”

“Was I talking?”

“You’re loud.”

“Sorry.”

Jean snorts, and then mutters, “It’s okay.”

He doesn’t protest when he feels Marco’s fingers lace with his.

“I was dreaming about pie.”

“I know.”

Marco stiffens in embarrassment, and Jean prays he doesn’t pull away. When his fingers tense, Jean holds on tight.

“You’d like it,” Marco says, so quietly, Jean almost can’t hear him.

There’s a short silence, until Jean replies, “Can I try it?”

Marco’s smile is the sensation of lips kissing Jean’s collarbones through the thin fabric of pajamas, and snuggle— _snuggle_ —up against him.

“If you come home with me sometime...” Marco trails off. His voice is uncertain, though, as if he thinks Jean might say no.

= = =

It’s summer, and sunshine always puts everyone in a good mood.

They’ve been running, but it’s so damn hot that the few of them have taken a break for a moment, having found a natural spring.

Marco is grinning in delight, not wearing a stitch as he leans back unselfconsciously against the edge, his arms extended behind him as he smiles and inhales the forest air deeply.

“Bodt,” Thomas laughs from where he’s sitting across the way, “have you got freckles _everywhere?_ ”

Jean is pointedly staring at their clothes, as if a Titan might come by just to steal an extra shirt, and ignoring the conversation.

In actuality, he’s trying not to think about the fact that he has no idea if Marco has freckles anywhere other than his cheeks, or maybe shoulders. If that one time in the showers counted when it’d been a long and tiring day and—

“Maybe.”

It sounds coy, and Thomas laughs in a way that doesn’t sound particularly chaste. Marco smiles a little, his mouth curving up at just the corner.

Jean turns away, and the splash of water as he gets out of the spring startles the remaining two.

“We’ve been here too long,” he says defensively, shaking the water off himself. “I’m going to finish the run. I’ll see you back at camp.”

He pulls on his clothes fast—he’s relatively sure his shirt is backwards—but he starts running again, ignoring the uncomfortable feelings pricking at his mind.

He knows he’s being silly. There’s really nothing else to it at all.

The forest is cool and quiet, and he can vaguely hear a group of other cadets a few hundred yards away, also trying to leg it and finish the run before sunset.

“Hey,” comes a breathless voice next to him, “you sure run fast, Jean.”

He doesn’t look at Marco, frowning, but he does slow down to a more relaxed jog. “I want to get back in time for dinner. Shitty as it might be.”

“Are you mad?”

Jean’s eyes widen, and now he outright stops and turns to face Marco.

Marco actually keeps running, not expecting the abrupt action, and then stops a few feet away.

“Why the hell would I be mad?” Jean replies, taking two steps backwards. He can hear cicadas in the grass, buzzing, as if they’re hiding from the summer sun, too.

Marco just studies him for a moment, raising his eyebrows.

“You seem mad.”

“It’s not my fault you can’t read people and I don’t—”

Jean gasps as Marco takes two steps forward to put a hand on his shoulder, and Jean’s heart skips a few beats as he meets Marco’s eyes, the adorable bastard.

He’s got a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks that have only grown more pronounced with the summer sun.

Jean’s father, while not exactly upper class himself, had always said that freckles were the sign of a laborer. The residents of Trost took great pride in pointing out how many other layers of the Wall were between them and the Titans, how many more poor there were to look down upon.

“Well, you didn’t answer Thomas’s question,” Jean says, trying not to think so hard. “ _Do_ you have freckles everywhere?”

He can feel his face heat—and is embarrassed for his bashful reaction—as Marco embraces him, pulling their bodies together. He’s still damp from the spring, and Jean can’t help but savor the way the fabric clings to the sharp, masculine lines of his body, the smell of him with a little sweat, and the harsh lye soap they all use to clean up.

“Do you want to see?” Marco asks him.

“Yeah,” Jean replies, his mouth suddenly dry.

Marco smiles a little, pulling away. “This time,” he says, “you should really look.”

Jean just grunts and crosses his arms, but he’s distracted as Marco shrugs his shirt off again.

Either way, Marco does have freckles everywhere. They’re not as pronounced, but Jean can imagine what he’d look like in the noontime sun, probably bent over some patch of godforsaken unfertile earth in Jinae. Jean’s never been to Jinae, but he knows it’s in the same region as where Sasha’s from who Jean knows is always hungry for a reason.

Jean suddenly realizes he’s been staring at Marco’s chest for a solid minute without talking when Marco starts to laugh.

“I don’t have _that_ many,” he says, grinning broadly. “I’m not an oddity.”

“You’re...” Jean swallows the first adjective that comes to mind. “You’re too... _freckly._ ”

Marco laughs. “You probably have at least a few, too, somewhere, Jean. It’s not that uncommon.”

Jean’s eyes widen and he feels the heat rise in his cheeks again. “I don’t think I do.”

“Oh, really?” Marco asks, raising a playful eyebrow. Jean decides to one-up him, and unbuttons his own shirt.

Marco smiles and pulls Jean closer as the white fabric flutters to the forest floor, and they press against each other.

“My sister always tried to use lemon juice to get rid of hers,” Marco muses, sliding his hand around to the small of Jean’s back. He’s only a little taller, but it’s enough so that when Jean turns his face, his forehead is against Marco’s temple. The hair there is soft, and Jean inhales silently. “She hated our freckles. She said it made her look common.”

“Lemon juice does that?”

Marco laughs a little, stroking his thumbs gently against Jean’s spine. “Apparently.”

“Don’t get rid of yours.” Jean doesn’t even bother blushing as he says it; he likes Marco’s freckles, his skin, his smile.

There’s a short silence, and Jean is sure he’s going to start purring as Marco’s strokes his back, when there’s an unexpected statement.

“I’m not interested in Thomas.”

Jean immediately pulls away, staring at the ground.

“Okay.”

He knows he’s being pathetic, and he just has to remind himself about how much he doesn’t love Marco Bodt, when Marco presses close and replies, “You want to see where else I have freckles?”

Jean just nods dumbly; the moss against his back that afternoon is very soft, and he’ll remember it with the same fondness for splinters.

= = =

Jean has a nightmare about the Military Police. He’s wearing his jacket with the unicorn emblem, but there’s something missing.

He’s standing escort at a parade for a dignitary that looks like his father, but he can’t stop fidgeting. He can’t stop biting his lip and looking around; it’s suddenly clear that Marco isn’t there.

Jean wakes up abruptly with a startled, panicked sound, blinking in confusion until he realizes he’s not in camp or in the lap of luxury.

He sits up quickly, and his limbs protest. Trost… the Titans… fire…

The pillow is exceedingly soft as he sinks back into it with a sigh, arm over his face.

“Kirschstein? Rest break’s almost up. You’re on clean-up duty next.”

“Yeah,” Jean shouts back at the door, “out now.” He rolls onto his side and sighs, gathering his bearings. The morning light is harsh, but he lets the smile slowly come back to his face; they won for the first time.

He sits up to pull on his boots and gear with a purpose, ready to face the day.

He thinks of pie, and wonders if somewhere, Marco is dreaming, too.


End file.
